I am making another run at this project. I am taking a different approach in rather than automating the shoe to changing my tool holder rack to a pedestal type tool holder system of my design. I have made 10 of them and plan to remove the rack. Thermwood uses this system but they have specific collet chucks that have a flange I thought about going to this style and buying their holders but at a cost of over $1500 for all the parts I need. I decided to make my own tool holders to hold the collet chucks. This will change how the tool is changed by not having to slide in the tool holder rack with a horizontal move instead it will make a Z axis plunge to the tool holder pedestal and drop or pickup a tool this will allow me to use a dust shoe that surrounds the cutting tool better. I will post a picture of the new tool holder pedestal let me know what you think.

Here is todays progress. First picture is before I started. Tomorrow I need to test the tool height switch and set the Z axis heights for the tool changes I already tested the X & Y axis coordinates but it got late so I quit for the night.

This picture just shows the old rack removed.

I cut some .050" deep pockets for the new tool holders to make sure they are accurately placed.

The tool holders installed showing the bottom of the dust shoe around one tool holder showing fit I haven't put the brush on that part yet.

I am not sure if anyone was interested in this project as there are no comments but here is a video of the finished product I am very pleased in how it turned out. I was able to save all the old parts and files to turn it back to factory condition if I want to but I think I am going to like it. I also added 5 new tool positions I just need to buy the collet chucks. I can now run a dust shoe with a long skirt and it all removes really easily.

I'm sure someone will Mike....but not everyone has the need as much as Miller Marine does. Me...I STILL haven't made spacers and a 3" brush plate for mine yet, and surfacing oddball stuff means a lot of vacuuming...you'd think my inherent laziness would have prompted me to put that project on the front burner:)This thread may prompt me to it:)scott

How do you like in now that you have had it a bit? Where did you get the new holders or did you make them?My IS 510 should be here next week and i am worried about the standard dust shoe not working well enough and this may be the ticket:-)

usLEDsupply wrote:How do you like in now that you have had it a bit? Where did you get the new holders or did you make them?My IS 510 should be here next week and i am worried about the standard dust shoe not working well enough and this may be the ticket:-)

I like the new setup. I did make the tool holders I can send you the file if you want to make them. The dust shoe they come with now is better than the one my machine came with back in 2014 so you may want to try it before you decided to make the change they wanted around $350 to upgrade mine to the latest dust shoe and I was not confident it would work well so I was not willing to gamble the $$. There is a down side to this style tool holder you are limited to how large a tool will fit. The max tool that could be loaded in the holder would be about 1.5" the tool holders measure about 1.95" and you need to have enough surface area for the collet chuck to rest on the holder. I have a spoilboard surfacing bit that doesn't fit in the rack but to me that is no big deal I never left it in the rack anyway. I just load that bit by hand send it to do a tool height surface the spoilboard remove it by hand change the bit and send the new bit back to the height switch and I am good to go. It would be a disaster to have it try and do a tool change with the big bit loaded.

I will add when I made my tool holders I made the bore 1" so if I wanted to load a larger tool than 1" I could bore the holder out to 1.625" but I would not make it any bigger than that. The largest tool I use is .625" and most of them are much smaller.

Here is a PDF of the parts. The one drawing is how it all assembles the large rectangle parts you need 2 of and the donut with the 4 holes you need 2 of if you are making them from 1/2" material. I also used a piece of automotive vacuum hose in a ring in the bottom so it would have a little cushion.